Social Dreaming: A Real Step Towards Inception

If you sleep for eight hours a day and live to be 90 years old, you will have been asleep for 30 years of your life.

A software engineer and former professor, Daniel Oldis, thinks we should be finding a way to capitalize on this time, and to use it to interact with other people.

Oldis has studied lucid dreaming for four decades, and is on the experimental threshold of being able to send messages to other people, asleep or not, via the internet.

Social Dreaming

Oldis believes social dreaming, or a real form of inception, is possible because of some cited scientific truths about dreaming. Here’s the rules:

1. External sensory cues can be incorporated into a dream and recognized as to meaning.

2. Dreamers can signal back to the external world with predefined ocular movements.

3. EEG (electrical recording of brain activity), cues and signals can be captured electronically and transmitted across the internet.

4. A website can record and coordinate EEG, cues and signals from multiple dreamers.

5. One dreamers signal can become another’s cue.

Inter-Dream Communication

Oldis and his team are currently conducting experiments in inter-dream communication, a field that they hope can lead to setting appointments, sending messages and playing games while asleep.

Oldis believes this technology could lead to a “Dreambook” of sorts, where in-sleep communication can be made using REM, tactile gloves, scents, sounds and vibrations.

If you’d like to learn exactly how the experiments are being conducted, here’s a presentation given by one of Oldis’ associates, Sean Oliver. Start it at 4:00 and it’ll run you just under 20 minutes. Though the technology is still in it’s preliminary stages, it’s some pretty fascinating stuff.

As always, we’d like to hear your thoughts on the experiment, as well as any experiences you’ve had with lucid dreaming.